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Report: Health care dominates JP economy

Jamaica Plain’s business community is dominated by the health care and social assistance industry, mirroring the city as a whole, according to a new business report by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).

The BRA report, which is called “Boston’s Neighborhood Business Patterns” and was released earlier this month, shows that about 58 percent of the employment in JP, or 6,967 employees, is in the health care industry. JP is in a similar position to the city as a whole, but in a much larger sense.

While the health care industry leads the city in employment, the figure is only about 26 percent. That number has increased about 37 percent since 2002.

The next on the totem pole for JP employment is the “professional, business services and information industry” category, which employs about 8 percent of the neighborhood’s workforce. That is followed by the leisure and hospitality industry at just under 8 percent.

There are 586 business establishments in the neighborhood, with the largest number (20 percent) of those being in the health care industry. The five largest employers in JP are Faulkner Hospital, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, MSPCA-Angell Animal Medical Center, Sherrill House Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and the Brookside Community Health Center.